


sweetheart

by Merricat_Blackwood



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Abandonment, Child Abuse, Emotional Abuse of a Minor, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Supreme Creeper Snoke, Violence, child grooming, non-canon compliant because Bloodline, seriously evil space wizard coming through, teenage Ben and kid Rey but only in part 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:50:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merricat_Blackwood/pseuds/Merricat_Blackwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The things we leave behind in our lives tend to have a way of coming back to us.  Rey and Kylo Ren are about to learn this the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. snoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The girl will be your downfall, Kylo Ren. She is not to remain here.”

**part one:**

**sentiment**

 

**chapter one:**

**snoke**

 

“Kylo Ren.”

 

The boy in black stands in a pool of pale light, ringed all about by the shadows that Snoke prefers. His head is bowed in a show of supplication, but his spine is as yet far too straight for his master's liking.

 

_That will change, young one. Soon enough, you will crawl and lick the ground at my command._

 

“Yes, Supreme Leader? You summoned me?”

 

 _And you came running, expecting praise. Well, you are in for a surprise, Kylo Ren._ “What is the girl doing here? I specifically ordered you to bring me skilled trainees, not sniveling younglings.”

 

The boy shifts restlessly from foot to foot, squares his shoulders, and dares to meet his master's eyes. There is a stubborn set to his apprentice's jaw that makes Snoke positively long to break it. “The girl wanted to come along. I saw no reason ...”

 

“That is not for you to decide,” Snoke breaks in, leaning forward in his chair, gripping the arms and digging his fingers in in irritation. “You are the apprentice and I, the master, and it is _my_ reasoning that you will follow, in all things. Is that clear?”

 

He relishes the brief flare of fear that he sees in the boy's eyes, that he feels welling and ebbing in the Force even after the boy has managed to erase it from his features. “Y-yes, Supreme Leader, it is. I am sorry.”

 

Snoke does not want apologies. He wants obedience, and he wants the last of Luke Skywalker's loose ends tied up and gone. “The girl serves no purpose here,” he snaps.

 

Kylo Ren hangs his head for a moment and bites his lower lip. _He is not acquiescing,_ Snoke realizes with a flare of annoyance. _He is thinking._

 

This is confirmed when the boy perks up, his dark eyes eager, shining with hope that turns Snoke's stomach. Obviously the boy is going to continue to waste his time. _Why did the Solo brat have to choose right now to start having a will of his own?_

 

“She could be useful, Supreme Leader!”

 

Snoke permits himself to laugh, a chill rumbling that sounds like a collapsing cavern. He knows this better than anyone and often uses it to his benefit. The boy shudders but stands firm. For now.

 

“ _Useful?_ How so, Kylo Ren? We have no need of servants here. Anything a fumble-fingered youngling could do, a droid could do with ten times the efficiency. The chit is not even Force-sensitive, Kylo Ren. Is there _anything_ she has to offer to our cause? To the Knights of Ren? To the First Order?”

 

“She could be trained as a stormtrooper ...” The suggestion is reluctant, and cut off at the knees.

 

“No, she could not. Our stormtrooper program is rigorous and exacting. Programming begins at infancy, as you know. Your little … pet … is far too old to serve our purposes.” _And far too willful: dangerously so, perhaps._ “There is no place here for her. You would have done better, my apprentice, to leave her to Skywalker.”

 

“I know that, Supreme Leader, but I ...” Kylo Ren stops, stuttering to a halt mid-sentence.

 

“Yes?” Snoke leans further forward, attentive, feigning the grandfatherly concern that has always wrung the deepest trust out of the boy over the years that Snoke has spent courting him. “You were going to tell me ...” _What? That you took her out of spite? To wound Luke Skywalker as deeply as you could, leaving him with nothing at all, not even the powerless orphan girl he took in out of pity?_ That, Snoke could accept. Could even admire.

 

Would that it were the truth.

 

“Nothing,” Kylo Ren blurts, shaking his head fiercely, the color high in his cheeks, his pale hands in fists at his sides. “Nothing, Supreme Leader.”

 

Snoke spreads his thin mouth in an approximation of a smile, and clucks his tongue in admonishment. “My dear Kylo Ren, I thought we had long since agreed to be truthful with one another.” He pauses, watching the boy's broad but still gawky shoulders slump with shame. “Do you not trust me?”

 

Kylo Ren blinks rapidly, but the blurry shine of his dark eyes shows all too clearly that he's suppressing tears. “Of … of course I trust you, Supreme Leader ...”

 

“Then tell me what is in your heart.” There is no possibility for argument or resistance, not any longer. He allows no room for further lies, for further denials. This is not a question. This is a blade to the boy's throat.

 

“I want … I want her to stay, Supreme Leader.” Kylo Ren hangs his head once again, hiding his face beneath a dark fall of wavy hair.

 

Snoke does not reply for a long time. Instead, he allows a deep cold silence to fill the deep cold room. In part, this pause is meant to make the boy squirm. Mostly, it is an opportunity for Snoke to stop himself from losing control of his treasured patience and knocking his apprentice into the farthest wall with all his power. _Want?_ _After all that I have shown you, all that I have promised you, there is something else that you_ _ **want?**_ _Such typical Skywalker arrogance …_

 

He could crush this ill-made, overgrown child with a twist of his hand, with barely a thought of intention or effort. But he, Snoke, is better than that, stronger than that. He is ancient and wise and powerful and ever in command; he is everything that his apprentice is not and everything that the boy wants to be, so he does not lose control. He waits until the cold of his silence has seeped into the boy's skin, until his teeth are chattering and his shoulders bowing and shaking from it.

 

“Your honesty is appreciated, Kylo Ren,” Snoke says at last, taking comfort in the way the boy attends his every word, his every motion, with big and starving eyes. “But your heart, I regret to say, is weak and foolish.”

 

The boy flinches, his clumsy half-grown body hunching as he absorbs the criticism in the same way he would absorb the impact of a physical blow. “As you say, Supreme Leader,” he whispers, his voice breaking into a shrill new octave it had not previously occupied. The sound of it, and the boy's palpable embarrassment, make Snoke want to laugh. He decides to save his mirth for later, when he is alone.

 

Once more silence reigns, save for the sound of Snoke's stiff bones crackling as he rises from his chair, the drag of his robes across the stone floor as he moves his tall pale figure towards the boy in black.

 

 _Youth is wasted on the young,_ he thinks, not for the first time. And, also not for the first time, he feels outrage and bitterness that such raw, fierce, wild Force power should be given to the pathetic excuse for a human being who stands before him now.

 

Snoke studies his newly-made apprentice, taking in every minute detail of the boy's homely face: the overlarge nose, the spotty cheeks flushed an ugly brick red, ears like the handles of a pitcher, pouty lips pressed firmly together as he tries to keep himself from crying.

 

Kylo Ren keeps his head up and stares straight ahead, his brown eyes blank and glassy with a thin veil of saltwater, his chin quivering. He is clearly hurt, clearly frightened.

 

He is just as clearly proud.

 

The Solo brat's fear is a second skin around him, one that he will never fully shed. Snoke does not want him to shed it; it suits his purposes well for his apprentice to always be just a little bit afraid. That stubborn, rough-diamond pride, though …

 

Snoke hisses and darts out one slender but steely hand with unnatural speed. He does not touch Kylo Ren, but the boy's head tilts back at a sharp angle nonetheless, his chin held in an invisible grip, his pale throat intimately exposed. The pulse beating beneath his skin is jumping so hard that it's plainly visible, standing out in sharp relief. _The boy looks as though he could start bleeding all over the room at the slightest nudge,_ Snoke thinks with a mixture of disgust and delight.

 

Aloud he says, in deadly tones, “Have I not cautioned you about the dangers of sentiment?”

 

The boy's nose and cheeks begin to flush an ever deeper, blotchier red, and the flush leaks down his jaw and his vulnerable throat. _On the inside, where it matters, Kylo Ren is always bleeding._ The tears brimming his brown eyes begin to spill over onto his cheeks, glittering like jewels in the pool of light. He worries his lower lip with crooked teeth. “Yes, S-Supreme Leader … b-but …”

 

“ _Enough.”_ The word rings through Kylo Ren like a slap. Snoke releases the boy from the Force-hold so abruptly he stumbles over his own feet and falls in a heap to the floor. Snoke steps closer to his cringing apprentice, casting the boy's prone form into shadow.

 

“Your personal feelings are meaningless,” he reminds Kylo Ren. _How many times have I had to teach him this lesson already? How long will it take for it to penetrate his thick skull?_ “They will only hinder you from accessing your true power, prevent you from fulfilling your destiny. Do you think that Darth Vader would ever have risen so high, had there had been a child clinging to his cloak?”

 

“No, Supreme Leader,” Kylo Ren mumbles, looking at the ground. A tear falls from the end of his nose and hits the stone floor with a small, feeble sound. “Of c-course not.”

 

 _I knew that invoking Darth Vader's sacred name would do the trick._ “The girl will be your downfall, Kylo Ren. She is _not_ to remain here.” Considering the matter closed, Snoke whirls, no longer wanting to look at the boy, and begins to stalk back towards his chair. Until he is halted by the sound of a cracking voice.

 

“Supreme Leader,” Kylo Ren says from behind him. “Wait.”

 

Slowly, Snoke half-turns. His apprentice has gotten himself to his feet, drawn himself up to his full height, wiped his tears away, and lifted his head once again. But one for one tumbled curl across his forehead, his clothes and hair have been set to rights. This feels very much like defiance, and when the boy opens his big mouth, it sounds like defiance too. No matter how pitiful his tone, the whelp still dares to question his master's orders. “Supreme Leader, she has … she has nowhere else to go.”

 

 _She can go to hell for all that I care,_ Snoke thinks, incensed. _How stupid can this Skywalker pup possibly be?_

 

“That,” he says thinly, “is none of my concern. I have much larger matters to attend to. _You_ brought the girl here, in a moment of idiocy which I have graciously chosen to forgive. And you will get rid of her … or I will get rid of you, Kylo Ren.”

 

The threat of being cast aside so soon, so suddenly, is more than Kylo Ren bear. Snoke watches with narrowed eyes as the boy's face crumples and his knees shake. The surge of raw emotional pain that passes through the Force is a feast for the Supreme Leader, though he takes care not to show his satisfaction.

 

“I understand, Supreme Leader,” Kylo Ren says softly, that thin film of tears in his eyes again. They bear so strong a resemblance to those of his cursed mother in that moment that Snoke has a violent urge to pluck them from his skull. “It will be done.”

 

“Good,” Snoke says shortly, with a curt nod. As an afterthought, he reaches out to pat his apprentice's cheek. The boy's flesh is tacky with tears and dried sweat, and the look of _need_ on his face is nauseating. Snoke pulls back. “Now, get out of my sight. Do not enter my presence again until the youngling is gone.”

 

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Kylo Ren whispers. Bowing so hastily he almost trips again, Snoke's new apprentice turns and flees the room. He does not once look back.

 

He does not see first the grimace and then the chilly grin, the look of deep satisfaction that arrives and lingers over the Supreme Leader's scarred face. Kylo Ren thinks that his ordeal is over, that his lesson has been learned.

 

“Oh, my dear boy,” Snoke says aloud to the empty room. He admires the way his own voice echoes, sounding like an army of voices. “We have barely even begun. I have _so_ much to teach you.”

 

An army's worth of laughter fills the room, a symphony that lasts for a long time with only the one laughing to enjoy it.

 

And enjoy it, he does.

 

 

* * *

 


	2. ren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If his Knights don't respect him, how will he ever respect himself?

**part one: sentiment**

 

**chapter two:**

**ren**

 

“Told you we should have ditched the kid, _Master_.”

 

Kylo Ren looks up sharply, so startled that he almost lets out a cry. In truth he _needs_ to let out a cry: a long and loud one: it's been building up inside of him the whole time he's been in the Supreme Leader's presence … but he can't do it now, where people can hear, where people can see. Especially not _these_ people.

 

_My Knights._

 

He'd been distracted, so shaken, so _emotional_ that he hadn't even sensed the six of them there, waiting for him in the dim recesses of the stone corridor. They're just around the corner from Snoke's audience chamber; how long have they been lurking there, and how could he have allowed himself to stumble into their midst? Being caught off guard makes him feel foolish, which makes him angry, and that anger steadies the shaking thing he has become … just enough to push the cry back down where it belongs: inside of him, unheard.

 

Rosi – _no, that's wrong, her name is Nera Ren now –_ is smirking, her impertinent words still hanging in the air, unchallenged. The others look at him with equal skepticism, their postures challenging, their eyes demanding and hungry. Even Macela Ren, whose facial expression rarely changes, is staring at him with eyes like pits, her head canted like that of an inquisitive bird. But no matter how they run their mouths or flex their muscles or bare their teeth, it doesn't matter.

 

They are all afraid, just like he is. He can feel their fear; they all _know_ he can feel it. What they hunger for is reassurance, a sense of certainty, security, power. And they just keep staring at him, looking to him. The scolding he just received from Supreme Leader has left him riddled with fissures, and under the heavy gazes of the Knights of Ren, Kylo Ren almost breaks.

 

 _I have nothing to give you!_  he wants to scream at them. _I'm empty, can't you see? I've only just begun and already I've managed to fail. I don't know what I'm doing; don't look to me!_

 

But that won't do. _I am their master now._ _ **Me**_ _, not my … not Luke Skywalker._

 

He is Kylo Ren, he is their master, their leader; the Supreme Leader has given him that title, that responsibility, has trusted him with it. So he has to shoulder the weight of it now. If his Knights don't respect him, how will he ever respect himself?

 

So he takes his anger and uses it to straighten his spine, harden his face into a mask as best he can. “I hope that you all weren't eavesdropping on my private conference with the Supreme Leader,” Kylo Ren says sharply, imperiously. If his voice shakes, let them think it shakes with anger. “Because if you were ...”

 

“Eavesdrop? Who needs to eavesdrop?” Volo Ren shakes his dark head, adorned with the horns of the Zabrak. “You're as transparent as a bad holo.”

 

“I told you that Leader Snoke wouldn't approve,” Thysia Ren says anxiously, his teal skin looking rather greener than usual, his anxious eyes darting back and forth, never resting even on the person he's talking to. “I _told_ you.”

 

“I didn't want your advice then, Thysia,” Kylo Ren snaps at the Twi'lek boy, “and I sure as hell don't want it now.”

 

“Yeah, because it's too _late_ now,” Drako Ren points out under his breath. The skin under his eyes is as blue as the irises, as if he never sleeps, and the back of his blonde hair sticks up, always. “And clearly, you're _so_ good at making decisions on your own.”

 

Kylo turns on Drako, sharp words poised on his tongue and violent intentions in his fists, but he's interrupted.

 

“I suppose he wants you to kill her,” Nera Ren puts in archly, examining her perfect, silver-painted fingernails as if their upkeep is her only care in the world. But her very real anxiety gives her words weight, turning them from a jab to a gut-punch.

 

And for a moment, Kylo Ren simply cannot breathe. “What … what did you say?”

 

“Like you hadn't already thought of that,” says Ziva Ren. Her horns, like her brother Volo's, poke up from her scalp through a thick cloud of hair so dark red it looks black, like dried blood.

 

But it's clear to all of them now that Kylo Ren hadn't thought of it … or perhaps simply had not allowed himself to think of it. It must have been there, silently lurking somewhere in the back of his mind, but now it surfaces like a drowned thing, stinking, bloated, ghastly. He wants nothing more than to turn away from the idea, reject its existence, but he's so horror-struck at the thought that he can't even move.

 

“Your grandfather killed to become stronger in the Dark side, didn't he?” Volo presses him.

 

“He killed all the Jedi in the Old Republic, even the … even the younglings,” Thysia adds. He pats his lekku like he's checking they're still attached, a nervous habit of his. “You told us that, I remember.” He sounds as though he would much rather forget.

 

Yes, Kylo Ren had told them that, because that's what the Supreme Leader told him, and because he didn't want to be the only one with that dark image troubling his thoughts day and night. But that doesn't mean … he's not … he doesn't have to …

 

Kylo Ren shakes his head as if attempting to dislodge the very thought. _No. It's not like that. Supreme Leader never actually said I had to …_

 

It wouldn't make any sense. He's going to be more powerful than his grandfather was, that's what the Supreme Leader says. He's going to do surpass him, do what he could not. Yes, Darth Vader had destroyed all those lives because his master, Darth Sidious, had ordered it. But the Supreme Leader has told Kylo Ren that Darth Sidious was a short-sighted fool. Not _all_ the Jedi need have died. If more Force-sensitives had been shown the wisdom of the Dark Side, then the Empire would not have fallen the galaxy not plunged into chaos. So much good could have been done. The First Order is not going to make the same mistakes that the Empire did, and Kylo Ren is not going to make the same mistakes as Darth Vader. His way will be a better way; it already is. Aren't Luke Skywalker's students all here, alive, because of him?

 

So Snoke can't really mean that he wants Kylo Ren to kill Rey.

 

_But what if he does?_

 

“No,” he says aloud. “I'll handle this.”

 

"But, Solo ..."

 

He seizes Thysia Ren by the throat, his fingers digging cruelly into the boy's teal skin. This isn't the first time they've sparred, but it's certainly the first time he's tried to _hurt_ any of them. He loosens his grip, but he doesn't let go. "You aren't to call me that,” he snarls. “It's _forbidden._ The Supreme Leader will ..."

 

"What?" Thysia croaks, scratching at Kylo's wrists with his long fingernails. "Kill me?" Fear leaks into the air around him, tainting it.

 

Kylo Ren shrugs as if he doesn't care, pushes Thysia aside, and ignores the stinging of the scratches on his wrists, the stinging of impending tears in his eyes. "Maybe."

 

“This was a mistake," Drako says with his customary glumness, nudging the toe of his boot against the stone wall. "Master Luke might not have been much of a teacher, but at least he wasn't a homicidal maniac ..."

 

"You can't talk about the Supreme Leader that way!" Kylo Ren yells. His voice cracks again, and he flinches, but keeps going; he can't let an insult against the Supreme Leader stand. "He's no maniac; he's a genius! We'll learn more about the Force from him in a year than we would have from Luke Skywalker in a lifetime. Just wait, you'll see ..."

 

"We're tired of waiting," says Ziva Ren, her arms folded across her chest. She runs her tongue along the line of her sharp teeth. "That's why we agreed to come with you. Because you said we wouldn't have to wait anymore."

 

"And you won't," Kylo Ren tells her, trying to get himself under control, trying to get all of them under control. "We've only been here for three days, Ziva, what do you expect? The Supreme Leader has a lot to do."

 

Volo snorts, just as impatient as his sister Ziva but a good deal more bullish. "And we're at the bottom of the to-do list, is that about right, Kylo?"

 

"Oh, give our poor master a break," Nera Ren says, stepping in between the two boys and slinging an arm around Kylo's shoulder. "He's had a rough day."

 

Kylo ducks out from her hold, scowling as his cheeks heat up, and Nera giggles. His visible embarrassment works some kind of spell on the Knights, breaking the tension that's been growing thicker between them. They all have a laugh at his expense; even Thysia, still massaging his throat dramatically, gets out a chuckle.

 

“I have to … I have to go,” Kylo stammers.

 

"That's right," Volo says, his fangs gleaming in wide grin. "Run along home, Kylo Ren. The baby needs feeding."

 

"Don't make me hurt you, Volo," Kylo wearily says, smoothing a hand through his hair.

 

Volo is cheerful now. “You can try.”

 

“Don't push him right now, V,” Thysia mumbles, rolling his restless eyes. “Our master fights mean and dirty.” He pats his throat, and Kylo resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him.

 

“Mean and dirty is exactly how I like my fights!”

 

“Another time, Volo,” Kylo Ren says quietly. He doesn't have the anger to rely on anymore; he's never been able to rely on it. It drains out of him too quickly, leaving him tired and … sad. He has to get out of here before he can't hold that sadness inside anymore, before it swallows the Master of the Knights of Ren and leaves a crying, pathetic child in his place. “We'll speak again. In the meantime, do as I tell you and … mind your own business.” He scowls for emphasis before he turns his back, starts to walk away …

 

"I could do it for you," says Macela Ren.

 

The sound of her voice, so rarely heard, turns all their heads.

 

Macela Ren passes for human, but she isn't. She won't tell anyone what species she is, what planet she's from. Alone among them, she sought out Luke Skywalker for training, not the other way around. She's neither tall nor short, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither pale nor dark. There is an emptiness about her, an absence to her presence, a silence to her sound. She has been this way as long as they have all known her. Nothing she has ever done has been unexpected, because she lives outside the realm of expectations.

 

But this ... this is unexpected.

 

"What did you say?" Kylo Ren asks her flatly.

 

"I could make it quick," Macela continues. "Painless. Peaceful. The little one would never feel a thing. Would never even know."

 

What she's proposing shocks them all. Even Nera of the caustic jokes is wide-eyed, her hand raised to cover her mouth.

 

"But she's a youngling," Volo murmurs, disgust written on his face.

 

"She's done nothing wrong," Ziva says at the same moment, her indignant words tripping over her brother's.

 

Drako exchanges grim looks with Thysia. Unspoken, the two boys reach out and join hands.

 

Kylo Ren does not say anything, nor move. Nor does Macela Ren. The two of them stare at each other in silence, a silence that none of the others dare to disturb. It grows until it is almost a living thing.

 

"It would be a kindness," Macela says at last. Her nondescript face has not changed expression once.

 

But Kylo Ren's face darkens with a rage the likes of which none of the other Knights have ever seen. The air seems to have been vacuumed out of the corridor, and it's so _cold_. The stone that Kylo is standing on shatters, and shards of dark rock sail up and surround Macela Ren, hovering with their jagged edges inches from her skin. Kylo Ren, controlling them, is breathing hard, his chest heaving, fists clenched, nostrils flared, his spotty skin gone bone-pale, his eyes glittering horribly, as if with fever.

 

In this moment, they are all afraid of him ... except for Macela, the object of his wrath. The shards of stone that threaten her flesh might as well not even there for all the attention she pays them. She just _looks_ at Kylo Ren, the way she always just looks.

 

"If you so much as look at Rey, Macela ... if you so much as _think_ about her ..." he chokes out, blood in his words, "then I'll know it. And I'll be sure to make _your_ death longer and more painful than you can possibly imagine. Do you understand me?"

 

Macela blinks, once, languidly. "Yes, Master," she says, an ancient calm on the surface of her empty eyes, her voice flowing like peaceful water. Kylo Ren blinks and shudders a breath, and all of the stone shards fall back to the floor with a clatter.

 

"Rey is mine," Kylo Ren says in a low, eerie tone. "The Supreme Leader has tasked me with … with getting rid of her. I don't need any help from any of you and I don't want it."

 

"But ... Kylo ..." Thysia ventures tremulously.

 

" _Don't_ ," Kylo Ren growls, whirling and glaring at Thysia, withering him instantly. "Just … don't."

 

Sweeping them all with a final furious stare, Kylo Ren turns his back and stalks off in the direction of his quarters, his shoulders tight and his fists bunched at his sides.

 

The effect is of this grand exit is somewhat ruined when, before he's quite rounded the corner, Kylo Ren chokes on a sob and breaks into a run.

 

The pain he leaves in his wake is palpable to all of them, even those who are not as practiced or gifted empaths as their master. The Knights of Ren exchange glances, except for Macela. She pulls out a comb from a hidden pocket and begins to brush her hair, which is neither long nor short, neither light nor dark.

 

Volo is starting to shake, and Ziva punches him hard in the shoulder, speaking love in the language of siblings.

 

“You cut me,” Drako protests, withdrawing his bleeding hand from Thysia's and licking the blood away from his palm.

 

“I'm sorry … I'm so ...” Breathing hard, Thysia leans against the wall and puts his face in his hands. "But Rey's so little ... and she loves him so much ... I can't believe he would ..."

 

Nera Ren punches the wall. "He wouldn't, he _won't._ Ben would never ..." She halts her sentence, nervous for the first time that the Supreme Leader will swoop from the shadows and cut her tongue out. She cradles her hand as though only just noticing that it hurts.

 

"You're right, Nera. _Ben_ would never," Drako Ren says heavily. In the dim light, his blue eyes look like twin bruises. "But Kylo Ren? He damn well might."

 

A brief silence falls.

 

“I want to go home,” Thysia whispers.

 

Macela puts her comb away and gives her hair a final pat. The pat that she bestows on Thysia's arm is only slightly less perfunctory. Her lips tilt in something that might be a smile, and it makes Thysia wet himself, a little.

 

“This is our home now,” says Macela Ren.

 

The other five of them say nothing.

 

There is nothing more to say.

 

 ---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these are my headcanon knights of ren; like their master, they are obnoxious babies and i love them <3 please let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> so ... I've been Reylo AF for ages now but this is the first full-on Reylo story that I'm posting. there are 5 parts planned to this story with 4-5ish chapters in each but because I am a big-time pantser when it comes to writing, that's ... subject to change. 
> 
> (side note: does anybody else think of Snoke as "evil Dumbledore?" or is it just me?) 
> 
> ANYWAY please please leave a comment and let me know what you think! feedback fuels me the way Ben's pain fuels Snoke. ;)


End file.
